The 1950s were much more than poodle skirts and saddle shoes. The era was filled with dinner parties and adventurous dishes, too. Need evidence? Just flip through a vintage cookbook brimming with crowd-pleasing recipes for pupu platters, Spam loaves and frankfurter casseroles.

These throwback recipes are the perfect inspiration for throwing a 1950s dinner party. Brought to life by a generation of homemakers on the cusp of a fast food revolution, midcentury fare embodies a time when home-cooked meals were the norm -- and served with gravity-defying Jell-O salads, in both sweet and savory varieties, on the side.

Throwing a 1950s dinner party is fun, but it's no small feat. After all, during this decade a typical day began by frying bacon, poaching eggs, flipping pancakes, baking apples, brewing coffee and pouring milk. And that was just breakfast. On a Wednesday. You can imagine what dinner must have been like.

To get you started, we're sharing our top five tips for throwing a 1950s dinner party; it all begins with a few retro recipe sources on the next page.